Longview teens offer hope, discover Africa through church mission
Monday, May 5, 2008 7:02 PM PDT
By Cathy Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this articleWhen two Longview sisters traveled from the First World to the Third World, they were catapulted from a lovely home on Sunset Drive to an African village of scorching heat, pit latrines and people infected with AIDS.
They'd go back, said Mariah Morrison, 13, and her 17-year-old sister, Leah.
"It showed us what's going on in the world," Leah said, "how much we have and how little they do."
"I'll always have the memory," Mariah said, "seeing the children and how happy they were that mzungu played with them. Maybe we gave them some hope."
Mzungu means white. In some parts of Africa, including the Ugandan towns where Leah and Mariah made separate visits, white skin and straight hair is still so rare that people reach out to touch them, they said.
The Morrisons, too, experienced the shock of the new.
Joining in DOVE Uganda, a five-year-old commitment of Northlake Baptist Church, the girls spent two-week missions participating in "crusades" (Christian services), giving out food and medical supplies, and getting to know Ugandans.
Leah went to Masindi in early 2007, and Mariah worked in Mbale and Rongoro in February of this year.
Both girls go to Three Rivers Christian School. Their dad, Northlake Baptist's associate pastor Frank Morrison; and their mom, Barbara Morrison, had been to Uganda several times already.
Barbara remembers the time Leah said she wished she could have a queen-size bed.
"I thought, 'I really need my kids to see what I saw.' "
She would not have urged the girls if she hadn't experienced it herself, Barbara added. "I knew it was safe."
Neither of the girls wanted to go. Leah had heard about the violence there and watched the movie "Hotel Rwanda."
"I had that fear of the unknown. I was praying to God, and still I had the jitters. ... I finally said yes."
A year later, she was the one telling Mariah, "You have to go."
Church members who make the trip attend training sessions on what to expect, what to wear and how to cope with the heat and go to the bathroom in holes in the ground.
The trip starts with a flight to Amsterdam, then a nine-hour flight to Entebbe. When Leah climbed down the steps onto the airstrip, "it was so hot and humid," she said. "There were mosquitoes everywhere. It was very stressful."
There was one other teen in their group of 12 Baptists from Longview and Princeton, Ill. After a stopover in Uganda's largest city, Kampala, they drove to Masindi.
Volunteers stay in guest houses, where two people share a room with twin beds. There might be Greek Orthodox visitors staying there, or people from war zones up north who are fleeing violence.
"The first night, I didn't like it at all," said Mariah. "It was so small. I saw a cockroach."
Mosquitoes spread malaria, so the girls slept inside nets that surrounded their beds like tents.
The food also took some getting used to. And for three days, Rongoro was without water due to the crisis in Kenya, Frank Morrison said.
Discomfort took a back seat to the work at hand. Both girls helped lead crusades, played with schoolchildren and passed out food and supplies at health seminars, which include government-sponsored blood tests for AIDS.
One Mbale family had 24 orphan children living with them in addition to their two biological children. Four of the village's children died of AIDS last year, and the Morrisons attended a funeral for an 11-month-old baby who was wrapped in a white sheet and buried, as is customary, near the family's house.
In Uganda, a million children have been orphaned by AIDS. The average life expectancy is 49 and the average age of citizens is 15. Health information there is a gospel all its own.
Frank and Barbara explained the "ABC" approach to AIDS awareness mandated by United States funding: A is for abstinence, B is for "be faithful to your spouse," and C is for condoms, Barbara said, a last-ditch suggestion "because we love you and don't want you dead."
Adult villagers who come to the seminars get food as an incentive, but not the children who cluster around and want some, too. This pained the Morrison girls. "They treated us like kings and queens," Leah said. "We're not really worth it. We'd rather see it go to the kids."
Another traumatic incident happened to Barbara and Mariah on this year's trip.
They were driving along a road in the dark and came upon a terrible taxi accident. A man covered with blood screamed for help, but no one in the car had gloves with them, so they could not help the injured people without risking exposure to the AIDS virus.
"They don't have 9-1-1," said Barbara, still troubled that her daughter had to witness the adults' decision not to stop. "It was such a helpless feeling."
How do American visitors deal with the scope and sadness of conditions in Africa?
"You have to focus on one person at a time," Barbara said.
The sometimes hard-to-understand perimeters of the Ugandan project are decreed by Ephraim and Jova Tumusiime, the pastor and his wife who are in charge of a cluster of churches making up DOVE Uganda.
The Tumusiimes, who have become close to the Northlake congregation and have visited Longview, explained how sponsorships of school uniforms and supplies for children are doled out one to a family, because gifts from outsiders can create dangerous jealousies.
Barbara, whose black-and-white photos offer stunning, compassionate views of Ugandans, said she sometimes has to bite her tongue when local people say things that reveal a lack of understanding.
She poses the dilemma: "If your husband died of AIDS, and you had to feed your children, wouldn't you marry again (and possibly pass on the virus or get it from a new partner)?"
The Morrisons also want to communicate the beauty of the Ugandans and their country, which Winston Churchill once proclaimed "the Pearl of Africa."
"The people are so gentle and humble," Frank said, "and the pace of life is so different." He said he appreciated the vibrant music and dancing.
Leah went on a safari to see African wildlife and took a boat ride to the source of the Nile. Mariah remembers a young boy who got to know them, and when they were leaving, followed their car playing his harmonica.
"I think they gave us more than we gave them," Leah said. "They're so happy and so sad at the same time. Their eyes have more emotion in them than our eyes."
The Morrisons are glad their daughters took the challenge. "It's good to go outside of your world," Frank said. Added Barbara, "I wish every child could go. It's a life-changing experience."
I wish . . . wrote on May 5, 2008 11:12 AM:
Anonymous supporter wrote on May 6, 2008 5:55 AM:
You have supporters in the shadows youll never know.
"
Kelso Mom wrote on May 6, 2008 10:05 AM:
Wondering wrote on May 6, 2008 10:52 AM:
Wondering- wonderng who you are wrote on May 6, 2008 12:24 PM:
I must say that the family, especially the girls, will probably be more open to other people and more able to eventually question the limitations of their faith than they would have without the exposure to Uganda. Thus is many a secular humanist created, and that's a good thing. "
To Wondering-wondering wrote on May 6, 2008 1:26 PM:
Nancy wrote on May 7, 2008 12:37 PM:
I don't want to overshadow what these girls have done, but I have my concerns with any faith-based "mission" in such a country as Uganda. "
Dave wrote on May 8, 2008 5:44 AM:
Chris wrote on May 8, 2008 10:55 AM:
Beth wrote on May 8, 2008 1:56 PM:
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